I got this pen today

[DilettanteG]

@RedPie Nice! Just in time for summer, a very sunny color!

[RedPie]

2 hours ago, DilettanteG said:

a very sunny color!

Thank you. Yes and I love it.

[inkstainedruth]

On 3/18/2024 at 1:30 PM, SLinkster said:

I survived a trip into Five Below. The tweenieness was overwhelming, but I found a 6-pack of dual-tipped FP/highlighter and a decent sketchbook. Escaped for just about $8.50.

 

The FP come with a single color h matched cartridge and look like fine or extra-fine nibs (despite my writing test with one.

 

The paper held up well to all my currently-inked pens and to a writing test using one of the cheap FP by dipping. 

 

Those look like the set a friend gave me as a gag gift at Christmastime.  I've so far have had had no luck in finding converters that would work in them.  Someone in a chat window on Five Below's website said that Kaweco converters will fit -- only I tried a borrowed one at a pen club meeting last month and it didn't attach correctly to the back of the feed.  

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

edited for formatting issues

[Misfit]

I received two pens yesterday, and didn’t post. Both are Kaweco Sport pens. The Apricot Pearl has a BB nib. The Cyan version has a F nib, as amazon doesn’t offer much choice on nibs. The nice online store that where I bought the Apricot Pearl included a free bottle of Monteverde 2019 special edition DC Supershow Teal ink. That is a first from them. I had entertained a thought wishing for an ink sample or bottle since I got a notebook too. Imagine my surprise to get a bottle of ink. 

[SLinkster]

I met a friend this morning after work for a catch-up. She handed me this Parker 51 and told me I loaned it to her and she wanted to return it.

 

I'm pretty sure I would remember lending someone this pen, said as much to my friend, but she insisted it's mine. So now I have a Parker 51. It was full of blue ink, which I have washed out to the best is my ability. Currently have it filled with soapy water, nib down on a paper towel, to see if anything else will leach out. Maybe I'll fill it tomorrow.

 

[RedPie]

Over the weekend I got 4 new pens:

The Lioshi 818A

 

Domain Lion 1001

 

Jinhao 8802

 

Jinhao 82 Mini

 

Good times! ☺️

[Misfit]

The TWSBI Diamond Mini AL Silver with 1.1mm stub nib arrived on a local Election Day. 
 

[Penguincollector]

Not a pen, but a bespoke painted Sailor converter by Quillypigs in North Carolina. It has 2 penguins on it.

[Misfit]

Very cool @Penguincollector

Will you use the converter in a demonstrator pen?

[Penguincollector]

  Yes, or in my penguin one. I also got the blue converter from Amazon, when I empty a couple of other pens I will use them both. I want to try a few blue Parker Penman Sapphire dupe ink recipes and will use a few different Sailor MF nibbed pens. One of the converter penguins can look like it’s swimming.
 

3 minutes ago, Misfit said:

Very cool @Penguincollector

Will you use the converter in a demonstrator pen?

 

[Misfit]

That sounds so cool, the penguin swimming.  If you make a convincing dupe of Parker Penman Sapphire, will you please share the recipe?

[Penguincollector]

12 minutes ago, Misfit said:

That sounds so cool, the penguin swimming.  If you make a convincing dupe of Parker Penman Sapphire, will you please share the recipe?

   Oh, of course! I’m going to start with three that I have seen here, and compare them to the cartridge I have in use now. It may not be a match for what it was when produced, but I’m working with what I have. 

[A Smug Dill]

My first Sailor B nib, and — without having ever tested it — I imagine will be my only one ever, simply because I have no use in mind for one, other than to complete my ‘library’ (not that there's even all compelling reason to do so), on a Sailor Profit Light in Shining Red, sold and shipped by Amazon Japan. (Ordered just before midnight on 27 March, and delivered this morning on 3 April, so in less than seven full calendar days.)

 

[Paul-in-SF]

I haven't been buying many pens lately, but I got curious about stylograph pens, so I picked one up from Speerbob on eBay, and it arrived yesterday. It's a Pick Pen Co. pen in a dark green mosaic pattern, and it seems to write effortlessly. I am undecided about whether I like this style of writing instrument or not. As positives, it has the uncomplicated writing geometry of a ballpoint (you can hold it on any side, there is no front and back) but you hold it like a fountain pen and write without pressing. On the other hand, it is a bit boring, since there is no nuance to the "nib" point. Time will tell how much I end up wanting to use it.

[Junebe]

These came today, and same as A Small Dig ones, were ordered on 27 March. In my case from Aliexpress.

From China to Spain in one week 🙂.

- A Majohn A2 EF.

- A Majohn A1 EF. 

- A Pilot Cavalier F.

 

 

Very pleasantly surprised by the Majohn's, I didn't expect to like then that much. Both write very well, smooth and keep up with fast writing without hesitation.

 

I'm very happy with the Pilot too, but that didn't surprise me.

[pan101]

Latest eBay purchases, 2 pens 1 cap. Mabie Todd Swan's in green snake skin, 1 light, 1 dark. Ultra sonic'd them and fitted new sacs. Light one has a medium/fine flex nib and the dark one a medium broad, italic?, flex nib. Was pipped at the post buying a matching cap on eBay at the weekend so now I'll probably have a long wait before I can get a cap and complete the pen.

[cat74]

A later model Parker VS in the mail today.

This is my first with the aerometric variant!

 

 

[Penguincollector]

  Great pen, @cat74- the VS is such a smart looking pen, so of it’s time. 
 

  My March purchases are starting to trickle in,  today I received my Wancher PuChiCo Penguin Black and a grey Waterman Dauntless (or Stalwart, I don’t know which). 

[A Smug Dill]

Between Wednesday and Friday last week, 65 new fountain pens — among other things, including three 100-piece tubs of ink cartridges, ten Rhodia dotPads, a dozen dip pen handles, and a multi-pen — were delivered. These are the six priciest ones:

 

As delivered, sold and shipped by Amazon Germany. Given I paid less in AUD amounts than the marked retail prices in EUR for them (taxed and delivered to Australia), I guess I'm OK with the Safari and cp1 pens did not come in LAMY gift boxes for presentability.

 

(Yes, the LAMY pens I got all have black pen bodies.)

 

The cp1 with titanium oxide finish is my second favourite LAMY fountain pen model, although the Z50 polished steel nibs factory-fitted on them are of inconsistent quality as repeat customers of LAMY would come to expect. These cost me per unit than any of the ones I've managed to pick up in the past; and given how they've been big hits with friends I ‘penabled’, I thought it couldn't hurt to keep a couple more on hand in my prospective giveaways pile.

 

The black Z50 steel nib is the only EF nib variant I didn't have (outside of the uncommon Z58 rose gold/platinum bicolour nib) and didn't test here; and I've been meaning to get one of those, but ever since La Couronne du Comte went out of business, I couldn't find any priced around €10. This Safari Umbra cost me less all up than the lowest-cost solution (for a new Z50 nib) since.

 

As for the LAMY Joy calligraphy set, it's totally superfluous, given I haven't even been keen enough to do proper Italic lettering to have inked up the Sailor HighAce Neo 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 calligraphy pens I picked up when I was last in Japan. However, when the effective price is less than half of what any Australian retailer is selling the set with or without markdowns, I just couldn't help myself, and “had to” get one to add to my personal library of writing/lettering instruments.

 

 

Just the other day, someone was asking on Reddit about cheapest “JoWo sticks”, and I was going to suggest the long-since discontinued Wancher Crystal — of which I already have one — but I wanted to verify that they're still buyable before I gave my answer. I was completely taken by surprise at how cheap they've become (and made even cheaper because the planets various stackable discount offers were aligned); ordered individually, each of these cost me about the same as a JoWo #6 nib unit alone, once non-nil shipping (and tax) is taken into account. Even though I'm not at all a keen JoWo nib swapper, and my experience with the EF nib on my first Wancher Crystal was only so-so, I do know that these pens are sturdy, designed to be eyedropper-fillable, and have excellent cap seal effectiveness.

 

These Wancher Crystal pens are the cheapest “JoWo sticks” I have, but which incidentally I trust to seal well when capped and unused, thanks to their spring-loaded inner caps à la Platinum's Slip & Seal mechanism; and can be used as eyedropper-fillers by design.

 

Each of the six pens cost less than AUD $50 (all-inclusive), with half of them significantly so.

 

Not shown are six Jinhao 82 pens with shimmery pen bodies costing under US$20 all up; and three Jinhao 777 and fifty Jinhao 993 (aka Jinhao Shark) pens costing < US$1 per unit (averaged across each lot), taxed and delivered. Each Jinhao pen came with a converter, of course; and every unit (that I've cleaned and prepped/inked so far) has remnants of blue ink in the feed expelled upon initial flushing, being the telltale sign that the nib has been tested at the factory. Not that the testing is necessarily confidence inspiring; the first of the two Jinhao Shark pens I tested would write, but pen strokes with its F nib in some directions produced a very ‘draggy’ kind of feedback, and the lightest left-to-right strokes (for entrance strokes in cursive writing, and serifs for Italic letters) would often fail to deposit ink on the page. Not so with the second pen from the same lot.

[inkstainedruth]

Yesterday it was a couple of (presumably 3rd tier brand) piston fillers at an estate sale.  One is a brand called "Heiko" which was apparently an East German (DDR) brand.  The other is apparently a brand called "Singwitz" (although the imprint/logo really looks more like it says "Singroitz" on it... ).

Have not had a chance to see about flushing either of them out (one of the pens may need to have some sort of caulking done to the connection between the barrel and the ink window; and I don't know what shape the piston heads on either pen are in -- but the mechanism seems to be working okay on both of them.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth